Love,

All About Lily Chou Chou

2010-05-23T09:17:00.004-04:00

The reason my heart stops every time I see the color green.
Five years and I still can't get this movie off my mind. It's so oddly perfect.
I want to go on and on about this, but no more words.

Accidentally Abstract

2010-04-04T13:07:00.001-04:00

winter sports

2010-04-04T12:53:00.001-04:00

Tiles.

2010-01-26T03:10:00.003-05:00

1. LYNN

Lynn Lydon is standing outside. It is an aggressively bright day. She is wearing tight jeans and large sunglasses. Something is in her hand, something small and flat. Her fingers curl over it one at a time. They make a loose fist before unfurling in the same gradual manner. This process repeats several times before she is finally ready to offer the object up for inspection.

It is a piece of tile, possibly from a bathroom. No longer than an inch long in any direction, a few handpainted strokes cross one surface. Polished clean by her touch, it gleams cream and cerulean blue.

A charred abyss looms before her. It is a sight of such confounding destruction that without the spared buildings to place it into context, it could have been anything-- a galactic crater, a collapsed coal mine. Instead, it is the brownstone structure that once housed her brother, now reduced to dust by a well-planned explosion.

Men walk past her in various uniforms and filthy Italian suits. One of the suits calls out her name. She does not hear. She is trying to fit the tile's shape into a floral pattern that she thought already etched into her memory. She mentally rotates the dabs of paint in various angles, eternally stumped.

The scene feels unfairly placid. The only turmoil is invisible; three strokes of paint spinning wildly in a young woman's mind.

2. TEDDY

Teddy Lydon is breathing. His feet are bare, and he occasionally shifts his weight from one to the other. Breathing and standing on his own, he further proves his existence by biting into a sandwich. Even if dead men did eat they would not be eating anything with the needy gusto that Teddy is currently employing to devour his turkey and avocado sandwich. Once it disappears, he loudly drains the contents of a fountain beverage.

The narrow window lets in a determined ray of sunlight. A silent breeze lends life to a collection of notes piled haphazardly on the counter. The tiles set in an attractive border along the wall are painted with brilliant blue flowers.

Teddy Lydon, full of boyish charm and a delicious sandwich, is standing in the kitchen of his sunny apartment, troubled by nothing in particular.

2010-01-25T06:08:00.001-05:00

Great kid.

Stark.

2009-09-16T03:45:00.007-04:00

The deposit had gone through. The paper proof was in his hand. His name was there, among those of others, and it occurred to him how long it had been since he had last read his full name in print. He squinted at the four compact portions of ink.

He read the statement through twice before folding it up and tucking it into his wallet. He had expected himself to be a difficult conversion, and was surprised to find the brief document to be enough. He believed.

His faith sealed, he rejoined the city. It had not changed. He tried to place new meaning into the obvious symbols (the waning sun, the crisp air) but failed miserably. Instead of being able to see things anew, he was only capable of fine tuning his usual, tepid manner of observation. He saw the smaller specks of dust that floated within rays of sunlight. The cooler pockets of air that one occasionally encounters on a breezy day were colder by a couple more degrees. Annoyed by these useless details he began to walk. He was homebound for a block or so. Then it became necessary to deviate, go searching for a new experience that would more properly align with the monumental event that had taken place.

He considered a bar, and passed it by without breaking his stride. He did not want to be seen by a familiar face, someone who might be able to detect a change in his demeanor before he himself could. He would consider it to be a handicap. He regarded the sun, the specks of dust, and decided to return when the sun began to set. He crossed the next street with vigor, feeling better now that he had been, once again, assigned a place to be and a moment to arrive at.

On repeat.

2009-06-08T03:56:00.000-04:00

Latest Apprehensions

2009-04-16T22:04:00.003-04:00

1. Keanu Reeves, you are seriously encroaching on my Super Fun Asian Girlhood Double Nostalgia Time by insisting on starring in a Hollywood adaptation of Cowboy Bebop. If you ruin it I will kill you. I will summon the teenage beast within me to do so.

For reference see:
Super Fun Asian Girlhood Double Nostalgia Time Memory:

Super Poor Choice of Casting:

2. I really hope I can get through this summer.

Predicament

2009-04-14T18:18:00.006-04:00

"To be immortal simply means that you will outlive everyone. Thus, the relevance of immortality will dissipate when fulfilled. There are two paths to infinity: you can either go on living forever or you can be dead forever. The former option is attractive only in its familiarity. Once there is nothing left to die and everyone has attained infinity, you will understand that you do not have the upper hand... you alone will never know what is on the other side. You alone will be left questioning."

-Manhattan Corbacher, confirmed immortal

The Complexities of Unproductivity

2009-03-31T14:30:00.004-04:00

I have been writing about Manhattan Corbacher since I was sixteen years old. I am now twenty three and nothing has been completed.

The futility of my effort is understandable: He is immortal. I am not.

I have begun to draft random informational pieces about his daily life in an attempt to achieve full comprehension of his identity. Basically, I am writing a biography about a fictional character in the hope of eventually figuring out his story.

As if this was not unnecessarily time-consuming in and of itself, I've taken to chronicling his infinite life span in intervals of two seconds.

I am doomed. It's okay. So is he.

2 Second Biographies (III) - Mr. Corbacher peels off a Nighttime Rejeuvenation facial mask.

2009-03-31T13:45:00.001-04:00

He imagines rubbing out a freckle

truncating the reign of a melanic dynasty,
a myopic aspect of his being since the summer he turned seven

and suffered his first sunburn.

2 Second Biographies (II) - Mr. Corbacher retrieves Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" from a crate in his attic.

2009-03-30T15:57:00.012-04:00

Within the transitory silence between titles he re-discovers a color
simultaneously rose and asphalt

the very hue of a misplaced hair-pin
belonging to an ex-girlfriend from whom he last extracted himself

half a century ago.

2 Second Biographies (I) - Mr. Corbacher takes a tentative first sip.

2009-03-30T15:49:00.005-04:00

During the harried aftermath of yet another false alarm
this one caused by a too-hot beverage (a take-away container of morning coffee)

he snaps his head backwards.

As he allows his tongue to furl towards the back of his throat
he dissects the situation, aided by recollections of similar episodes

and wonders if anything is different.

with the qualities of a pheasant

2009-03-05T12:13:00.004-05:00

Granted, this is hilarious even if you weren't raised within range of a Korean-American community whose cultural events included bouts of old-people karaoke...

But the sheer accuracy of it all! The way Bret squints at the lyrics, like so many middle-aged Koreans whose visions are weakening! The inevitably mortifying dance he is somehow compelled to perform as he relaxes into the song! The barrage of random stock footage in the background!

Also, he has excellent pronunciation! Like creepily excellent. Like better than people I know who've been living and studying in Korea for years excellent.

Vertical.

2009-03-05T11:51:00.003-05:00

This is how you will achieve perfect symmetry.

2009-02-17T11:27:00.012-05:00

Your heart, it palpitates so irregularly because it has already left you for an apocalyptic sect of late night infomercial fame.

Your remaining singular organs are fast approaching similar epiphanies--

Like your liver seeking God during inappropriate moments: uttering frantic dissections of hallowed syllables during office parties.

When these porous prophets seep sarin from ribcage slats your lungs are first to splatter their soggy masses against one another

though your kidneys are swift to follow suit; knotting together in preparation for the inevitable enlightenment.

Your brain expels from your body, poisoned and shrieking. It squirts a moist trajectory 25 centimeters long

before shriveling into two piles of dust, identical to the very last particle.

Concrete

2009-02-13T06:05:00.000-05:00

There has been a great lack of pictures.

But right now I am thinking of empty parking lots and the quiet significance they hold within a suburban upbringing.

There are specific moments, like a well-aged American vehicle belonging to someone's dad idling by the self-pump row outside the Stewart's. I darted out of the store and there were a few seconds that felt meticulously terrifying. It was as if someone with a vast anatomical expertise had made an invisible incision in my cerebrum knowing that it would somehow culminate in the misperceived malleability of the asphalt that night.

Then there are those series of remembrances that blur and interlock into a panorama of ghosts. Like my first make-out session, which is actually all the make-out sessions that happened one winter. We spent hours on every corner of closed-for-season parking accommodations for college sporting facilities.

The longer I remain alone the more my previous values appear to me as abstracts. I yearn for stretches of concrete more than the people I used to tread upon it with. I feel estranged from my own memories. I could feel liberated by this, but I could also feel utterly demented.

I am not entirely sure which I prefer.

***(Stewart's' are an upstate New York chain of gas stations that are also famous for their ice cream.)

Sometimes. (Most of the time.)

2009-02-04T06:48:00.003-05:00

I think of time and space
as akin to hundreds of tons of metal
an oncoming train perhaps
or a fractured passenger flight steaming a sharp trajectory
towards my leaky skull.

365 (Jan. 12th - Jan. 16th)

2009-01-23T03:56:00.007-05:00

FRIDAY Jan. 16th 2009

THURSDAY Jan. 15th 2009
Sylwia.

WEDNESDAY Jan. 14th 2009
FAIL

TUESDAY Jan. 13th 2009
SUPER FAIL

MONDAY Jan. 12th 2009
This is Greta Danisova. She's fourteen and fucking awesome.

365 (Jan. 1st - Jan. 11th)

2009-01-22T05:03:00.005-05:00

So apologies, apologies.

Good news: I HAVE been taking pictures. More or less on a daily basis. As planned.

Bad news: Due to extreme extremes at the payroll factory, I have been unable to make it to the photo store during operational hours to pick up the film I have been dropping off in their overnight bin.

And without further excuses: ta. da.

SUNDAY Jan. 11th 2009

SATURDAY Jan. 10th 2009

FRIDAY Jan. 9th 2009

THURSDAY Jan. 8th 2009

WEDNESDAY Jan. 7th 2009

TUESDAY Jan. 6th 2009

MONDAY Jan. 5th 2009

SUNDAY Jan. 4th 2009

SATURDAY Jan. 3rd 2009

FRIDAY Jan. 2nd 2009
FAIL

THURSDAY Jan. 1st 2009

365

2008-12-28T21:09:00.004-05:00

*Inspired by the Emily of my dreams (aka Matilda. The Hun.) who is planning on writing 365 poems this year.*

Since photos are easier to force than poems (in my opinion), the rules I have set up for myself are as follows:

1. I will use, at the very least, one roll of 36 exposure 35mm film or two rolls of 12 exposure 120 film a week.

2. I will take at least one picture a day. I am not allowed to put off all my exposures till the weekend, for example.

3. I will have my film developed and scanned on a timely basis.

4. I will post seven pictures from each weekly roll of film. I am not allowed to select more than one picture from a single day.

5. I will update this blog with results every Tuesday.

Good luck, me and you.

Occidental

2008-12-26T21:54:00.003-05:00

Wired

2008-12-14T01:28:00.001-05:00

I rather like these.

2008-11-18T06:29:00.001-05:00

To Do

2008-11-12T10:07:00.005-05:00

1. Actually SLEEP (not haunted by potentially brain-cancerous migraines) on this BED (not a throwaway futon/cheapest spring mattress at IKEA on a bare floor) that I PURCHASED (not found on trash night/left behind by previous tenants) almost a week ago.

2. ~~Choose career over motherhood: Admit that I am not yet ready to adopt a cat at this stage in my life.~~ Rock your right to multi-task, ladies.

3. Visit bike shop on lunch break. Drown out tickings of biological clock (?!) with soothing gear-clacks and chain-whirrr. (Seoul just may be the least bike-friendly metropolis ever. Alas, a bike-less life no longer feels complete.)

4. Do something about this stupid long hair, stupid.

5. Purchase 35mm lens for F3 because without it, I just feel so small-dicked and inadequate, really.

6. Schedule optometrist appointment.

7. Eat more fresh fruit. Give yoga another try. Anything to prevent my entire body (organs and all) from developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

8. Visit post office.

9. Call bank (U.S.). Figure out how to wire C. money.

10.

Look up.

2008-11-06T21:01:00.001-05:00

MPDG

2008-10-21T11:55:00.003-04:00

Taken from NPR who took it from Jezebel

THOSE GOD DAMN MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS

This is what I do with my days now.

2008-10-16T07:35:00.006-04:00

7:45 AM. The alarm goes off (I manage to actually drag myself out of bed by 8:00 AM.) I make my bed. I eat my freakin' tofu. I get dressed. I put on sunscreen and powder my face.

9:30 AM. I scale a ridiculously steep hill towards the bus stop. This takes four minutes. The bus usually comes within two or three minutes. Fourteen minutes on the bus, and fifteen more on foot gets me to my desk, where there is a computer (PC) and an organized mess of paperwork. There is a metal division that separates me and a colleague from the other employees. There are print-outs (ink-jet) and photographs (mine) secured via little round magnets.

This is where I brave poorly designed Flash websites and carpal tunnel syndrome in order to seek out and secure "next season's face". I repeat English sentences to Latvian/Estonian/Lithuanian/British agents and argue about contracts and earning potential.

I send email after email. I put together and print out calling cards. I drink instant coffee. Occasionally I rush out the door with some really really ridiculously good-looking male model, or a wispy, leggy girl-child to a photoshoot, where I have to act as translator/babysitter/photo assistant. I make small talk with the staff and gush over the equipment. I stress about what they order for lunch.

7:00 PM. I punch out and stroll towards the bus, on the look-out for a place to grab a bite. It's stressful, realizing that my soymilk lists gelatin as an ingredient. I don't smoke as much, and I don't drink as much. But I don't eat as much either, and I'm mildly concerned.

7:45-8:00 PM. I get off the bus and walk down the hill to my current place of residence. I putter around. I miss people.

1:00 AM. I remove my contact lens and turn off the lights, baby.

This is the reason for Holgas.

2008-09-26T06:59:00.002-04:00

Brick Lane, London 2008

Headlines

2008-09-20T11:14:00.001-04:00

There seems to be an epidemic of broken-heartedness going around.

09-08-2008 [Boston to NYC]

2008-09-11T17:44:00.010-04:00

It is less than an hour before midnight. We are cruising down I-95 at a tame 70 mph. The combination of a clear, not-quite summer sky and a tenacious Saab convertible from the 1980’s adds up to some amazin’ stargazin’.

There is something distinctively American about a nighttime drive; a terror only experienced by entrusting one’s life to a machine that has proven to be fallible, generation after generation.

Boston you are one lame place to miss.

2008-09-07T17:05:00.002-04:00

I am packing up my room in Somerville. It is a slow process, fettered mostly by my own lack of gusto.

In the last four years alone I've filled and emptied countless pocket-sized spaces in three different cities on three separate continents. So far I've lost 60% of my material possessions and my sense of self.

This is the first time I've been able to look a city in the eye and say Goodbye. For Real.

So, goodbye Boston. I'll miss you, probably more than I am expecting to. But if I don't start leaving places I'm afraid that I won't ever find out where I can return home to.

(It Just Isn't.)

2008-08-27T20:40:00.003-04:00

It is no longer acceptable, to be sad amongst those who are not.

What Remains

2008-07-31T17:18:00.001-04:00

This city is done for.

Tom and Zac returned from their road trip with peeling tans and spoke of Austin, TX.

In Austin, TX the air is pregnant with droplets of water too microscopic to be seen but significant enough to coat the skin glossy. Smoke unfurls downward, collecting moisture like a sponge. It smells of marijuana and lake water.

Or so I imagine – I’ve never been.

We sat on Zac’s front porch tossing lighters back and forth. When Zac’s stories gain momentum, his words fall in a succinct rhythm that is impossible to disrupt. His conversations exude a mood akin to what is expected from an efficient, engaging classroom.

When Tom is speaking, it is important to watch him. Otherwise his statements will give the impression of being chronically incomplete. He frequently trails off into incoherent mumbles, but his hands – his hands become more articulate than his words. They carry the point across.

I was thinking of New York and how complicated it is to sleep now. I have to leave the light on. Always, even though it is harder to fall asleep under the harsh glow of the bare bulb. Always, because it is terrifying to be prematurely roused from sleep to the realization that it is dark, and that I am alone.

For several weeks I would regularly awake to find the digital clock blinking: 4:55 a.m. I had set no alarm, nor did I have a regular, respectable bedtime. I eventually unplugged that clock because it felt inauspicious, seeing those same numbers so often in a vulnerable state of mind.

Kevin and I walked to Union Square the other day. The summer breeze carried clay-colored dust from a construction site. The air felt dry and scratchy at the back of my throat. At the bus stop there was a crack in the sidewalk that mimicked the Texas-Mexico border.

These little awe-filled moments are murderous.

When we find ourselves disappearing; diffusing into particles of water and dust; we will discover that there is nothing rueful in absence. What merits contrition are those unquantifiable sources of pain: the mess of memories and other intangible relics.

(If I were to destroy this city backwards, dissolving the indescribable before crushing the concrete, would I be forgiven for leaving?)

After they left Austin, Tom and Zac drove along the border, whipping past rivers blending into fences blending into wire. The air was stiff with dried sweat and a kind of waxy residue left behind by desperation.

Or so I imagine.

Please keep in mind.

2008-07-24T20:55:00.001-04:00

"Only whores fuck in silence."

-Serge Gainsbourg

The different degrees of carfucking.

2008-07-18T13:25:00.004-04:00

Good-bye Gravity.

2008-07-17T12:31:00.004-04:00

She was rusty and beautiful. Like her namesake, she was a paragon of the 70's. Her tires were due for some plumping. I'm sorry I never got around to taking you in for a summer tune up, girl. It's hard to think of you now, probably gutted for parts.

Whoever took you, better have desperately needed the sixty dollars maximum that they will be profiting from your dismemberment. If not, I hope a panther eats their young alive.

"Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the night's old smoke, alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of Breakfast: flowery, permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over not so much through any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror's secret by which - though it is not often that Death is told so clearly to fuck off - the living genetic chains prove even labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down twenty generations . . . so the same assertion-through-structure allows this war morning's banana fragrance to meander, repossess, prevail."

-Thomas Pynchon

Need vs. Want

2008-07-11T15:35:00.008-04:00

Sometimes it is necessary.

And sometimes it's not.

There were years during which I did not cry. Then it was realized: no one is really capable of bottling up their emotions. Our minds are not vessels, but paths. We can not imprison, only direct.

If you do not open your mouth or unclench your fingers and toes in time, anxiety will seep from your pores, staining clothes and straining relationships.

I cry moderately. At least once a month. All I have left to conquer is the auto-response to the initial outside inquiry. "Are you crying?"

No.

Be quiet to-day.

2008-06-17T00:29:00.010-04:00

"I don't like it
when it is too quiet the neighbors are speaking in undertones and
I want to die."

Sweetheart. Do not die. After all
they are not talking about you. So be quiet to-day.

Be quiet to-day.

Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso Undergo Couple's Therapy

2008-01-14T22:02:00.003-05:00

Hers:

When he allows himself an introduction
do not reciprocate the extension.
His knuckles; overgrown cartilage;
are but casualties of future wars.

Instead scrape sawdust
like shavings of your own skin settling
in delicate piles at his feet.

Cut though stain and varnish
epitaphs sealed in the grain.
Hear the syllables of your name falling
from his iron bed.

Dora
let yourself seep into the woodwork
saturate your hands with the tabletop.

His:

When she folds into spaces much smaller
than your world-weariness can swallow
Re-route your intentions
in a swift counter-clockwise motion.

Acquaint yourself with each synapse
involved in the union of a hair's breadth of Fingertip
and a sliver of Sharpened Steel.

Suckle from angles
that claw through breasts and buttocks.
Watch the corners of her mouth sharpen
to pierce your premature kiss.

Pablo
clench your jaw to sever your tongue.
Learn to smile with your eyes closed.

See? (My very own moment of cockney.)

2007-09-04T04:52:00.006-04:00

In the mock desert of Government center there was this pigeon, see? Actually, there were many, many pigeons, see? But this one was dying, dying most desperately, ya see? Its feet were sanded down, sanded down by the pavement to bloody shreds, see? There were people giving a wide berth and people leaned up against the walls of Seventies Architecture who you had to squint real hard to spot. All that cigarette smoke, they blended in real perfect, ya see now?

And after spectating for about 25 minutes I picked that bird up and tucked it under my left arm and the people stopped and the people stepped away from their walls and put out their cigarettes and cheered: "Go! Go save that bird!" and we barely escaped the flashing lights and the thrusting microphones and I slid to my knees on the very first patch of dirt we came across. It was a cemetary, see? But it was already full, see? Full of colonial mayors from back when Boston was just knee-high to a monarch across the Atlantic, see?

But seeing as I was short on time and this bird was no actual friend of mine, it suited me fine all the same and I wrung its neck all the same, see? Don't get queasy now, it was one quick split second motion and don't tell me it would've rather wasted away all slow like in a place where you can't see no dirt for miles and miles and miles, see?